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I believe this Squealer of Shinsekai is a sketch of Animal Farm's Squealer.

Squealer in Animal Farm is a convincing orator and one of the leaders who overthrow human rule. Apparently, he becomes so convincing that the other animals would believe he could turn "black to white".

Yes, he's a classical dictator. A revolutionary that takes advantage of the noble cause to defeat the forces oppressing the people and then uses this as leverage to take power. It happens so fast that you don't even know it even happened.

Dictators don't work alone. One being can't just bend a nation to their will; they needed people to believe in their cause and further their power. And once it's in motion, anyone that says otherwise gets silenced.

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Let us start here from Square one. No... from zero!
You do not wish to know anything. You wish only to speak.
That which you know, you ignore, because it is inconvenient.
That which you do not know, you invent.Avatar/Sig courtesy of TheEroKing
Guild Wars 2 SN: ArchonWing.9480 MyAnimeList || Reviews

Though my point is really a tangent that is only remotely related to it anyways.

__________________

Let us start here from Square one. No... from zero!
You do not wish to know anything. You wish only to speak.
That which you know, you ignore, because it is inconvenient.
That which you do not know, you invent.Avatar/Sig courtesy of TheEroKing
Guild Wars 2 SN: ArchonWing.9480 MyAnimeList || Reviews

Yes, he's a classical dictator. A revolutionary that takes advantage of the noble cause to defeat the forces oppressing the people and then uses this as leverage to take power. It happens so fast that you don't even know it even happened.

Dictators don't work alone. One being can't just bend a nation to their will; they needed people to believe in their cause and further their power. And once it's in motion, anyone that says otherwise gets silenced.

Nah, you don't even know it happened, because well -- it didn't. All we know about the queerat hierarchy in the Robber Fly society is that they're a democracy. That's all we've been given. It has been articulated here (or in an episode thread) before but there is no credible reason for the Robber Flies to pretend to be a democracy. Seeing as they are the only faction to employ it, what they make of it is what it becomes in the eyes of the others.

Calling Yakomaru a dictator at this point in time is no different than saying that Tomiko is a witch that eats dead children to preserve her youth. It goes against everything we've come know about the series and could really only work if the writer employed the first rule of lazy writing (i.e. lol I lied).

I don't necessarily think Yakomaru is a dictator but I see no indication that the society is a healthy democracy either.

From what we saw briefly of their society (when Saki and Satoru saw the queen's condition) I would highly distrust Yakomaru's words that it's a society of freedom and rights. I don't think it was random that the animators decided to go with something gray and dark to portray their society.

Now I admit I could be wrong in this case but I want to point out sometimes what a character says and the reality are two very different things. Squealer is known to be distrustful and has lied before.

Why would he lie that his society is a democracy? Well for one I don't necessarily think he is lying outright but that doesn't mean he can't take certain ideas from something and manipulate them to his own purpose.

Does Squealer care about his society? Well maybe! But this is a character who turned on Saki, Satoru, Kiromaru, and the Queen when he kowtowed to them all in the past. But let's just say he did all that because they were more powerful then him.

Let's look at how he treated Squonk, someone less powerful then him. Or how about the fact that he seemed to have no issue when the other queer rats were turned into slaves (when before he was afraid of being turned into a slave himself).

So maybe Yakomaru is not a dictator, but I see absolutely no reason to believe he is some freedom fighter of justice for the Queer Rats either.

From what we saw briefly of their society (when Saki and Satoru saw the queen's condition) I would highly distrust Yakomaru's words that it's a society of freedom and rights. I don't think it was random that the animators decided to go with something gray and dark to portray their society.

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In the United States approximately 40,000 people were lobotomized. In Great Britain 17,000 lobotomies were performed, and the three Nordic countries of Finland, Norway, and Sweden had a combined figure of approximately 9,300 lobotomies.[106] Scandinavian hospitals lobotomized 2.5 times as many people per capita as hospitals in the US.[107] Sweden lobotomized at least 4,500 people between 1944 and 1966, mainly women. This figure includes young children.[108] In Norway there were 2,500 known lobotomies.[109] In Denmark there were 4,500 known lobotomies, mainly young women, as well as mentally retarded children.[110] By the late 1970s the practice of lobotomy had generally ceased. Wikipedia

It's a phase they'll get over it.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kirarakim

Now I admit I could be wrong in this case but I want to point out sometimes what a character says and the reality are two very different things. Squealer is known to be distrustful and has lied before.

In the high stakes game he's playing. Lying is like writing your own death sentence. If he has ever lied he lied by telling the truth or through the misleading use of hypotheticals.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kirarakim

Why would he lie that his society is a democracy? Well for one I don't necessarily think he is lying outright but that doesn't mean he can't take certain ideas from something and manipulate them to his own purpose.

Isn't that the whole idea about ideas; you come to understand them and then apply what you've taken from the established and adapt it to whatever situation you might find yourself in.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kirarakim

Let's look at how he treated Squonk, someone less powerful then him. Or how about the fact that he seemed to have no issue when the other queer rats were turned into slaves (when before he was afraid of being turned into a slave himself).

Yakomaru has had no direct interaction with Squonk on screen, nor did he ever show any interest in the critter beyond helping Saki and Saturo to him. And the whole slavery thing was post democracy. He even sorta called Kiroumaru out on that later. And even if the whole equal rights thing wouldn't extend to (former) slaves it would not invalidate the good he's done (it would simply be added up to the bad) and put him on the same level as the founding fathers (most of whom kept slaves).

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kirarakim

So maybe Yakomaru is not a dictator, but I see absolutely no reason to believe he is some freedom fighter of justice for the Queer Rats either.

What I find is more interesting than how to qualify him is what his intentions are.

Satoru got me thinking here. What could have driven Yakomaru to war? The child is what allows him to wage war. But that still doesn't tell us: why? Was it spite, due to the gods favoring the Giant Hornets? Were the (administrative) demands to blame? The constant threat of divine annihilation? If he needed a war for sociopolitical or economic reasons (e.g. lebensraum) warring the Giant Hornets would have sufficed. Does he hope to enslave the gods, to massacre them? Does he think his one cantus-kid able enough? If even a single god with a vengeance could escape such a fate, he risks setting loose a walking rechargeable atom-bom on all his burrows. Does he hope to renegotiate the terms of their co-existence? At this stage, for the village to agree to any sort of treaty, they would demand the lives of both Yakomaru and the cantus-kid. Such a treaty would leave the Bakenezumi at the humans' mercy. So that seems off. A protracted war seems unwinnable. Really no matter how you look at it it's just very tempting to view this little blitzkrieg here as a desperate all out attempt to not be exterminated and if it weren't for Squealer's genius that's what we'd all be thinking. O! What could it be that Satoru knows that we don't?

Care to elaborate? As you may have noticed I'm a bit lost on why and for what Yakomaru's doing what he's doing.

I said we don't know what his true intentions are yet. I can't elaborate what they are.

I am just saying based on his previous characterization & things I have observed in the queer rat society, I don't see those intentions as noble. I admit I might be wrong.

The main difference here is you are basing your assumptions on what he says. I am basing my assumptions on how he has acted up till now. I don't trust what he says.

Now it could be one of us is right or it could even be we are both right to a degree. We will just have to wait and see. But the point of the matter is we are both basing our theories on only partial information.